Fortnightly blog on Random Generators, Tech Community and Coding

Choosing a Specialisation: Umbraco

There is often advice in the software industry to choose a specialisation, and after mulling it over I have decided it was time to choose one.

So welcome to regular posts on the Content Management System (CMS) Umbraco.

Following are 10 reasons why Umbraco is a good fit...

1) .NET

The CMS is written in .NET and can be extended with .NET, which is good if you don´t want to throw away several years of hard-earned experience in the .NET world. The current implementation of Umbraco supports both MVC and Webforms.

2) Free and Open Source

Umbraco has been open sourced (MIT License) since it´s beginning and is therefore free for people to download, install and tinker with. This also means you can spend time helping enhance the underlying the code base!

3) Clear Roadmap

There is a clear roadmap for Umbraco, which in the past has migrated from Web Forms to MVC and has been thinking about the long road ahead to .NET Core.

There is a library of open-source extensions and modules for Umbraco, large and small. These including blogs, controls, designs, routing and many ways to configure your site. We´ll look at some of these extensions in a future blog post!

6) I Use Umbraco

I use Umbraco in my day to day work and in my own projects. I have two sites that use Umbraco (you're reading one of them) and will continue to use it for as long as it makes sense.

7) Paid Support Option

Umbraco has paid options for professional support. This is important for larger entities as it shows a mature ecosystem and gives them confidence that there will always be someone who can look after their Umbraco sites.

8) Training Resources

There are training courses for developer certifications available which is useful for those wishing to improve their skills in Umbraco and companies who want to bring their developers up to speed. There is also a wide array of online training videos at http://umbraco.tv/

9) European

This is more one that is important to me personally, but Umbraco was born in Denmark and continues to be popular in Europe. As someone looking to get work in mainland Europe this had to be a factor to consider. There is annual conference in Denmark called CodeGarden

10) I Like Umbraco

I like the feel and layout of Umbraco. I've used other CMS systems and like the way Umbraco is constructed and templated. If you are going to work in something long term and have the choice then choose something you believe in and can enjoy working with!

A Remote Software and Database Contractor specialised in Umbraco, Duncan works from wherever he finds himself. He is the co-organiser of the Python Exeter and Data Science Exeter meetup groups and speaks about Remote Working, Umbraco, Python and .NET
Outside of work he is keen on travel, random generation, foreign languages and good food.